Portfolio Prompt #5

1. Alterity is defined as "the fact or state of being other or different; diversity, difference, otherness; an instance of this".

The word "alterity" comes from many origins. It is partially borrowed from French; modeled on a Greek lexical item and also partially borrowed from Latin, also modeled on a Greek lexical item. 

The first usages of the word were seen in 17th century Latin with the word alias, meaning "another". It was also seen in 1270 in Old French in a philosophical context in sense ‘change, alteration’. 

The word "Alterity" has evolved since it's first usage, starting from a medical text called Speculum sacerdotale, with the word alterite, which is a synonym to "alterity". The word alterity has many different varieties, including alter, altern, and alternanthera, which all mean "different" or "other" .  Spectral, ghostly, and prismatic are just some of the alternative definitions of the word alterity, which was quite interesting when correlated to the topics which we have been talking about in class.

Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. "Alterity", accessed April 4, 2016.

2. Looking for specialized dictionaries to see how alterity is used in different contexts, I found that alterity can be defined as "the quality or state of being radically alien to the conscious self or a particular cultural orientation". This came from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, which specified on the idea of otherness which is the topic of the class. The use of the word "alien" is something that I had not put together with the word alterity, although from that perspective it does make sense.

The next specialized dictionary that I found was Postmodern Terms, which defined alterity as "a philosophical principle of exchanging one's own perspective for that of the other, the state of being on the periphery or fringes due to race, gender, or ethnicity, dissimilarity from cultural norm, and a lack of personal identity". I found this source to be extraordinarily interesting due to the diverse definition the source gave. The source, Postmodern Terms, defined words specific to, quite obviously, postmodern terms. I had not seen a definition like that, out of all the sources that I had looked at. This source also contained other definable words which I had never seen or heard of before.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary, s.v. "Alterity", accessed April 5, 2016

"Postmodern Terms." OnPostmodernism. Accessed April 06, 2016. 

3. This article is discussing the ethics of Alterity and the association of otherness. Specifically in this article, it stated "There, he argues for a response to the Other that culminates in my substitution of myself for him. I am responsible for the Other before the Other presences itself. If I fail to do that, I fail to embrace his alterity. This failure is a form of totalization. Totality is systematic, orderly, separative. Infinity, by contrast, is sensing, feeling, an embrace of the Other."

This quote uses alterity in conjunction with the notion of otherness. Alterity is something, in context, that a person possesses. It is something that is a part of them that seems to be somewhat ambiguous, but is present. In context, the speaker means alterity is an item which an individual contains; similarly to an aura of some sort. In the sentence prior to the use of the word alterity, the speaker states "I am responsible for the Other before the Other presences itself". They proceed to say that, "If I fail to do that, I fail to embrace his alterity", proving that they're defining this term as something that an individual contains that is discreet.

Lim, Ming. THE ETHICS OF ALTERITY: CONSTRUCTED CONJUNCTIONS AND THE EMBRACE OF OTHERNESS. University of Cambridge. Accessed April 6, 2016.